moved for leave to introduce Bill C-268, an act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act (deduction re other income).

Mr. Speaker, this enactment provides for the retiring allowance paid to former senators and members of Parliament of the House of Commons or of the spouse or child of a former member to be reduced by the same amount as would be clawed back from OAS on the basis of other income received personally or on a household basis commencing with 1998.

The clawback from a member's pension would apply whether or not the member was receiving OAS. However the amount to be clawed back would be calculated on the same basis as an OAS clawback.

That this House call on the government to bring forward a motion, pursuant to Standing Order 68(4)(a), to instruct a legislative committee to prepare and bring in a bill to amend those sections of the Criminal Code which deal with impaired driving in order to (a) enhance deterrence; and (b) ensure that the penalties reflect the seriousness of the offence.

Mr. Speaker, I am of course pleased to lead off this debate today during which we will be discussing something that can rightly be considered a national tragedy and also can be considered an epidemic in our country. I am talking about the crime of impaired driving, the senseless act of impaired driving and the consequences and shattered lives that follow when people, after drinking, choose to get in their automobiles and drive.

Today I am going to talk about the senseless and tragic crime that impaired driving really is. There is a state of mind within governments that tends to regard impaired driving as simply another social ill. We have to stop thinking about impaired driving in these terms. It is a crime. It is a 100% preventable crime. If only the government would recognize it as such and take leadership to prevent it.

I am also going to talk about how impaired driving has in fact reached epidemic proportions and how it has not been addressed in the way that it deserves by government at the federal level. Although changes and progress are being made at the provincial level, there is a still a long way to go in fighting this crime.

Through this motion we are going to call on the current federal government to take a real leadership role on the issue of impaired driving by instructing a committee to bring in a bill recommending changes in the Criminal Code. This will first serve to enhance deterrence against people who drink and then drive and second will ensure that the penalties for impaired driving truly reflect the seriousness of this crime.

Let me start out by clearly showing to this House the level that impaired driving has reached in this country because nothing substantive has been done to address it.

Did you know that statistically four and a half Canadians are killed by impaired drivers every day, seven days a week? As we debate this today, statistically two Canadians will be killed by impaired drivers and hundreds will be injured. Over 1,700 are people killed by impaired drivers in Canada every year.

As a matter of fact, the chances of being killed by an impaired driver are over three times greater than being murdered. As well, every day over 300 Canadians are injured in alcohol related crashes. This works out to 13 Canadians being injured every hour or about one every five minutes. In the time of my speech more than four Canadians will be injured in an alcohol related car crash. Well over 100,000 Canadians are injured every year because people drink and then choose to drive.

The tragedy of impaired driving extends far beyond the direct impact on its victims. It extends to all society. Let me quote some direct costs to our health care.

According to 1992 data, alcohol related costs accounted for more than 40% of Canada's nearly $19 billion annual substance abuse funding. This includes $4.1 billion in lost productivity, $1.3 billion in law enforcement costs and over $1.3 billion in direct health care costs simply because of alcohol related incidents.

Our courts are already backed up yet they deal with more impaired driving cases than any other kind of cases they handle. There is an incredible backlog in our courts caused by impaired drivers. There does not need to be. People do not have to get in their cars after they drink. It is a choice they make to break the law.

Unless the government does something about it, those choices will continue to be made. People will continue to drive and be convicted of impaired driving. People will continue to injure innocent victims while in that state behind the wheel. People will continue to kill innocent victims while in that state behind the wheel. That does not have to happen. We have to address it starting today.

The impact on the families and friends of victims killed by drunk drivers never stops. These people have to live the rest of their lives knowing their loved ones have been senselessly killed by a drunk driver. While it may be a private choice among individuals to consume alcohol, once that person gets behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle it now becomes a very public matter affecting all of us.

It becomes a very personal matter to the family and friends of the victims who have to relive the tragedy that results every day of their lives when their loved ones have been killed or injured by a drunk driver.

Impaired driving must cross every party line. There can be no partisanship when we are talking about the impact of impaired driving. I hope the members of the House recognize this today as we debate it.

Impaired driving is not a political issue but an issue of crime, the most severe of all crimes when it involves the loss of human life. Unfortunately, looking at the past records of previous governments, it is clear that while they have attempted to make some small changes to try and address the problem of impaired driving, the problem remains and whatever changes that have been made are not enough.

For example, the Tories introduced Criminal Code amendments in 1985 to include charges of impaired driving causing bodily harm and impaired driving causing death. But in the subsequent nine years of Tory rule the problem of impaired driving continued to escalate, so those changes were not enough. More needed to be done. But it was not done and the toll climbs still today.

Another one of the tragedies that the government has not addressed is how the new Criminal Code amendment on conditional sentencing applies to impaired driving. With conditional sentences if a person drinks and drives and kills someone and can afford a sharp lawyer, that person can walk out of the court without serving one single day for that deed, for the choice that was made to get behind the wheel after consuming alcohol and choosing to drive.

Let me give an example. Last month in Victoria, B.C., an impaired driver left a single mother a paraplegic. She will stay that way for the rest of her life. The impaired driver was given a conditional sentence because it was his first offence. This impaired driver may well have been driving impaired before. He just did not happen to get caught and did not happen to get into an accident.

However, the judge determined that because it was a first time offence that he would walk free with no penalty, just some community service. While it may have been a first time offence for the driver, the fact is that a young mother's life has been shattered by this incident. While the drunk driver who hit her gets a second chance, the woman will be paralysed for her entire life. She gets no second chance, and we should remember that and judges should remember that.

I want to talk now about three areas where past governments could have made some positive change to reduce impaired driving, but unfortunately they did not.

First, the Criminal Code set a two hour time limit on obtaining a blood or breath sample from an impaired driving suspect. This short time span has resulted in thousands of legitimate impaired driving charges being dropped because breath samples or blood samples were taken only minutes after the two hour time period ran out. Imagine that. Because the time period was missed, a person cannot be found guilty whether that person was guilty or not. This is not only a stupid law, but greatly impedes the job of police officers in obtaining evidence that would make a charge stick.

We should be more concerned about the victims of crime than we are about the people who commit those crimes. I would think that would be a logical conclusion. But the two hour time limit on breath and blood samples does not allow that.

A second area of impaired driving concerns some changes regarding the blood alcohol concentration level. Currently the Criminal Code sets that level at .08%, which means that the percentage of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood must exceed .08%. However, extensive research, and I can back this up, in the past 30 years has found out that this limit is too high. In fact, studies show that most drivers with BAC levels at .05% are impaired. These statistics come from scientific studies that have been conducted all over the world.

By lowering the BAC limit the government will be sending a clear message to the public that there is a zero tolerance policy toward people who choose to drive after they have been drinking. It has to do this. The government has an obligation to take leadership in this matter.

The third area in which changes can be made concerns the sentencing for drunk drivers. This is where that mindset of a social ill comes into play. The government does not have it yet and the judges do not have it yet.

Currently, the sentencing latitude for impaired driving causing death is anywhere from zero to fourteen years. Historically, the sentences have been in the zero to three and a half year range usually. That is a fact.

There have been some sentences in the six, seven, eight year range, but they make up less than 1% of the total sentences over the last 10 years. We are not really making some big leaps and bounds in that sentencing area. These slap on the wrist sentences are simply not acceptable.

As an example, and this is where it gets personal, in my hometown of Prince George, British Columbia, less than a block away from my house, a drunk driver killed three members of the Ciccone family in 1995. The impaired driver had had numerous impaired convictions prior to that, and had been in numerous accidents. The judge gave him a sentence of three and a half years for taking the lives of a father and two young children. Three and a half years for a person who, in a drunken state, in an instant, took three lives, after this person had a record of alcohol problems and related charges. No one can agree that the sentence reflected the severity of the crime.

Currently the average sentences for impaired driving are equivalent to sentences for defamatory libel, possessing a forged passport or dealing in counterfeit money. How in earth can we begin to justify the sentences given out for those offences with the offence of impaired driving causing death? It is beyond comprehension.

I introduced Bill C-201 in the last Parliament. That bill would have set a seven-year minimum sentence and up to a maximum of 14 years for impaired driving causing death. The bill was voted down by the Liberal government, most of the Bloc members, along with the help of the NDP. Somehow they could justify these slap on the wrist sentences for drunk drivers who kill. I do not know how, but they do.

The huge majority of Canadians are in favour of those recommendations, but the Liberal government, the Bloc and the NDP said: “No. We cannot justify that. Slap them on the wrist and turn them loose.”

A national organization with more than 2.5 million supporters, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD Canada, has just released a survey on Canadians' attitudes toward impaired driving. What is more important, the philosophy of some Liberal government members who cannot comprehend the seriousness of this crime, or the attitude of some Bloc members, or the attitude of the NDP members? What is more important, their philosophy toward this or the profound feeling of the Canadian people? The people come first.

More than 85% of Canadians surveyed by MADD Canada would either strongly support or support changes to the Criminal Code which would include minimum sentences for drunk drivers. That did not matter when Bill C-201 was voted down by the Liberal government. I want to thank the backbench Liberals who had the courage to support that bill. I also want to thank the two Bloc members who had the courage to support that bill. The government could not support it.

Let me mention some other MADD Canada survey results. Nearly 95% of Canadians believe anyone involved in a crash resulting in death or serious injury should be obligated by law to provide a blood sample at the request of a police officer. 95% of Canadians believe that, but the former justice minister did not believe that. This shows the average Canadian wants the two hour time limit extended or eliminated. We should tell that to the former justice minister.

As well, three out of four Canadians support lowering the blood alcohol content level to .05%, as has been done in other countries with huge success. Of those surveyed, 93.4% feel that lowering the BAC to this amount will make our roads safer.

Considering the survey results we can clearly see how the government is in a position to take some real leadership today. Everything is there for the government to do it. It could introduce changes which have been recommended by MADD Canada and by the Reform Party. Today is the day we can take that first step.

We support lowering the BAC to .05%. We support tougher sentences for those convicted of impaired driving. We are in favour of establishing minimum sentences and longer driving prohibitions for those convicted of impaired driving offences where injury or death result.

Reform also supports that hard core drinkers charged with offences be obligated by law to undergo mandatory rehabilitation treatment. If there is a jail sentence involved, any consideration of parole should be absolutely dependent on the convicted person successfully being rehabilitated through treatment. That is not too much to ask when we are considering the safety of our families.

Clearly it is time to stop talking about the tragic consequences of impaired driving. Clearly it is time to take action. The government can do it today. It is time to put aside all partisanship in the House and unite in one common fight against the crime of impaired driving.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley. It is a very contentious issue. I wholeheartedly support what he has said this morning.

Besides being a member of Parliament, in one of my other lives I am also a professional harness horse driver. It is interesting to note that we cannot get on a sulky and race a horse if our blood level count is over .04. I disagree that it should be lowered to .05. It should be lowered to at least .04.

The rationale behind the horse racing community is that we have to be careful and have a great concern for the equine flesh. I have far more concern for humans and believe .04 should be the threshold.

The hon. member spoke about lawyers getting involved. There is such a thing as democracy. If a person is charged with impaired driving they can go to court. It is their democratic right. They can have a very sharp lawyer, a Philadelphia lawyer. How would the hon. member ameliorate the situation with respect to lawyers? Would he be agreeable to some kind of mandatory sentencing?

It is very difficult because we are getting into the area of human rights. I agree with the thrust. I am just wondering if there is a certain component in the hon. member's motion to deal with the aspect of the lawyers getting involved and getting someone off.

The .05 is a recommendation by MADD Canada. If the government will take the initiative, show leadership and instruct the committee to go forward with the hearings, the recommendation of .05, .03 or whatever could come forward. The rationale behind it would certainly be related to the committee and may show up in the report as .04 being the recommendation. I understand what he was saying, and I certainly agree with him.

To address the second question, the problem we have in the courts today is that there is a profound initiative to try to keep people out of jail. The courts are backed up. The prisons are full. The philosophy of provincial governments, under direction from the Minister of Justice, is not to put people in jail. Therefore we find that the judges are more open to hearing suggestions of lower sentences to qualify for the conditional sentencing provisions.

We find the judges more concerned with getting into the flow of what the attorney general of the province or what the justice minister of the country is thinking about keeping people out of jail. They seem to be more open to lenient sentences.

One way to fix it is to tighten up the latitude the judges have. They have a latitude now from 0 to 14 years. That is a huge range. We find people walking out of courts every day who have been charged with serious impaired driving offences, because the judges have simply said that they will be given two years less a day with no rationale. Immediately they qualify for conditional sentencing.

In a case in my area the judge erred in his decision. When the decision came down at 3.5 years I got on to the media saying the judge was out to lunch on his sentence. I stated all the reasons why.

We also encouraged the crown to appeal the sentence and the crown did so successfully. Lo and behold all arguments the crown put forward in the appeal were the things I had said were wrong with the sentence.

As a result the court of appeal added two more years to the sentence. The fact is judges have the option of choosing to accept whatever precedent the defence lawyers are putting forward. In a majority of the cases they are choosing the precedents on the low end of the scale. We have to tighten them up and we can do it through minimum sentencing.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of examining a problem such as this one is to ensure that fewer people will be victims of accidents caused by impaired drivers.

A study of the statistics would, I think, show that the problem does not lie with the need to lower the allowable blood alcohol limit. How many accidents would be avoided if the level were dropped from 0.08 to 0.07, 0.06 or 0.05?

I think that, as a general rule, the people who cause most of the automobile accidents when driving impaired are those who are way above the limit. Whether we put it at 0.05 or 0.08, generally speaking, the drivers who are killing people while impaired are those with blood alcohol levels of 0.20, 0.30 or 0.35.

So making a change of a few tenths of a point is not going to solve the problem. I do not know what my Reform colleague is thinking, but is he contemplating changes in the penalties for impaired driving? This reminds me of the problem of children playing with matches.

Matches are not banned because they are dangerous, but they are kept out of the way of children, as is poison in the medicine chest. And the chest should be locked to keep children out.

Could the same reasoning not be applied to a person incapable of driving a car, who does not know whether or not he should drive because he is not sober? It might be possible to attach a boot to a car for one, two or three months, because the individual drove while under the influence, even though it was only at a blood alcohol level of .08 or .07.

This deals with the immediate cause. An individual who is not sober and cannot get his hands on a wheel will harm no one. You cannot allow such a person to decide whether he should use his car, as he is incapable of making a decision.

I would like to know whether the hon. member has given this any thought. I would like him to comment on whether we should change the approach and act on the cause of the accident instead of tightening legislation and creating more criminals without resolving the problem.

Too many people have lost their licence two, three, four or five times and have not been dissuaded from using their car when they have been drinking. So, perhaps the solution does not lie here. We could discourage them by using a Denver boot, for example. A man with his car in the driveway wearing a Denver boot can get as drunk as he likes, but he will not be able to use the car because of the boot, or some other similar device. Some way has to be found to stop him using his car. I would like my colleague's comments on that.

Mr. Speaker, with regard to my colleague's questions about lowering the blood alcohol content limit, he is not correct. Many countries including Norway, France, Denmark, other European countries and some states of the U.S., have lowered it to .05 and there has been a marked decrease in the instance of impaired driving. It does work.

What causes an accident or what causes someone to be convicted of impaired driving is when they make the choice to get in a car. If ever there was a case for deterrence it is impaired driving, stronger deterrence. As a matter of fact studies have shown that the number one reason people who do not drink or do not drive when when they have been drinking is that they are afraid of getting stopped by the police and being found in that state. That is the number one reason.

In answer to the member's question, stronger deterrence overall should include first offence impaired driving, second offence licence suspensions, lifetime licence suspension and automobile confiscation. We have to send a message that it will not be tolerated, and the government can do it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I had hoped to rise in the question and answer period. However I want to make it absolutely clear that the member is quite wrong in suggesting that anybody in the NDP takes this as funny.

I am sorry that there was not time to permit the hon. member to ask a question. I am sure he had a point to make. I dare say he will get an opportunity later in today's debate to make that point on debate, which is really what this point of order is. I am sure he will get that opportunity or someone in his party will.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might have the unanimous consent of the House for 60 seconds to say what I had in mind when I made the remark. The member accused my party of not taking this matter seriously. I think the record needs to be cleared up.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating MADD on the excellent work they are doing to draw the Canadian public's attention to the problem of drunk driving.

I want to repeat what the Minister of Justice said recently when she met with representatives from MADD. She said that she was going to raise the issue in the near future, in December, at her meeting in Montreal with all provincial justice ministers.

Parliament has the constitutional legislative authority to create criminal laws. Despite the opposition member's assertion that this government has not shown a leadership role by making changes to the Criminal Code, most recently, in the spring of this year the last Parliament passed amendments to certain drinking and driving provisions of the Criminal Code which have been introduced by this government.

On several occasions we made amendments, changes which clarified that the driving prohibition penalty starts to run only upon an offender's release from imprisonment. In my opinion that is an important change.

Parliament has also clarified that the defence can only introduce evidence of the accused's actual blood alcohol concentration that is different from his or her breath test where the evidence shows a BAC reading at or below 80.

Parliament also, despite the member's assertion, extended the period for a police officer to apply for a warrant to obtain blood in certain accident situations from two hours to four hours. Get the facts right.

As we know, each province has the constitutional legislative authority for such matters as highway traffic, driver licensing and motor vehicle registration within the province. The provinces have legislated in these areas with regard to drinking and driving. Also in the provinces, the enforcement and prosecution of Criminal Code offences has been assigned to the attorney general of each province.

Therefore in my view there are important intergovernmental consultations that should take place in order to come to a full understanding of the drinking and driving problem. There are legislative ways to further the progress that has been made to date.

The Minister of Justice, as I said earlier, will be meeting her colleagues and will be bringing up her suggestions for amendments to the Criminal Code.

The statistics on drinking and driving in relation to driver fatalities and criminal charges suggest that there have been important changes since the early 1980s regarding drinking and driving which, incidentally, has been almost overwhelmingly a male dominated crime apparently.

The recently released results of a public opinion survey commissioned by the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving which occurred here in Ottawa this week confirmed that progress has been made in changing public attitudes about drinking and driving behaviour.

However, notwithstanding the progress on this problem, as many members of this House are well aware, the most tragic consequences of drinking and driving remain a virulent blight on Canadian society. I agree with assertions of the hon. member about this.

The Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada is responsible for recording data for Transport Canada on driver deaths as a result of traffic accidents. The data come from information provided by the police and coroners and, since 1987, the data base contains data provided by all provinces and territories.

The good news is that, since 1987, the percentage of drivers with blood alcohol levels exceeding 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood is steadily declining. In 1987, drivers with blood alcohol levels over 80 represented 43% of driver deaths as a result of traffic accidents. In 1995, this figure was 35%. But this is not really good news, and I want to be clear about this. We do not want to see the level stay at 80.

The tragedy of accidents resulting in the death of drivers with blood alcohol levels over 80 does not end there. Some of these drivers are also responsible for the death of their passengers or other people not even in the car with them. Some drivers with blood alcohol levels over 80 survive the accident, but their passengers or other people not in the car are killed. It is tragic.

When injuries are taken into account, the human suffering over the years reaches staggering proportions, and intelligent people naturally feel they have to do something.

But the important question is this: What should we do? The causes are complex and the solutions to this serious social problem are not simple. Drunk drivers come from all walks of life, so we cannot simply adopt stiffer penalties and expect that just by doing that people will stop drinking and driving.

We have to adopt a whole package of measures, a holistic approach. For example, fines or prison terms are enough to prevent most of us from drinking and driving, but they seem to have less effect on certain persons with an alcohol problem, even if the penalties are heavier. So we feel that forcing people to follow a treatment and other measures might be more effective.

The Traffic Injury Research Foundation has recently released a brochure discussing the drinking and driving problem. It notes that for a drinking driver the risk of accident increases exponentially with an increase in the BAC level. I think we will all agree on that.

Not surprisingly, drivers with a very high BAC level are disproportionately responsible for fatal road crashes where alcohol is involved.

TIRF lists a number of measures that could be taken to further reduce road crash fatalities. Most of these measures relate to provincial governments. TIRF notes that many provinces have begun to implement some of the measures TIRF endorses.

One idea is to have graduated penalties that are linked to blood alcohol blood concentrations. TIRF notes that some sentencing judges already appear to do this when they render sentences in these cases.

Adding several other elements might help to better understand the problem of drunk driving. According to the Department of Justice, the Department of Transport is preparing a report on a survey done by police officers in co-operation with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. It should help us identify initiatives to assist police officers investigating crimes related to drunk driving.

In August 1997, the Department of Transport commissioned another study from the Addictions Research Foundation; it will survey the literature on the effects of various blood-alcohol levels on the ability to drive and deal with the issue of using lower blood-alcohol levels in imposing administrative penalties, including suspension of the driver's licence, or in the case of criminal penalties in certain countries. This information will likely be very useful when the legislative options will be reviewed with the provinces.

It is important to note that the Department of Transport has been involved for several years with the provinces and other partners in non-criminal type initiatives implemented under the strategy to reduce impaired driving. There is no question that measures outside criminal law have a major impact on the problem. In fact, it is through the combined efforts of governments, public and private sector institutions, families and individuals that we have been able to make progress in this area. It is most likely that initiatives based on criminal law cannot in themselves ensure further progress.

I take offence to the opposition member's allegation that the members of this side of the House have not had the courage to recognize this great Canadian tragedy or that the government has done nothing, as was stated. We have and will take action. The minister has already reaffirmed the government's commitment to the representatives of MADD she met with last week. I am sure all members of the House will continue to encourage the minister and the government to take action.

I will repeat what I said earlier. We have a commitment to take action.